by Lori Benton
“Did you see my brother?” Two Hawks interjected, impatience getting the better of his manners. “Did you speak to him?”
Stone Thrower thinned his lips to show he noticed his son’s rudeness but also lifted a hand to the leather bag strung around his neck. His father had made the little bag; his mother stitched it with white beads. It held the painted face of their firstborn.
Ahnyero’s gaze followed the gesture. “I never saw him. It is a long tale, and I would not make you wait to hear that part.”
Two Hawks’s hope, taken wing at sight of the scout, plummeted back to earth.
“I went with that spy all the way to his post at Lachine,” Ahnyero said. “I saw the regiment—Johnson’s Greens. I spoke to one who is captain over the one you seek. That man, Watts, took the spy back and accepted the story we gave. But the one you seek had been sent away on an errand to Montreal. I found a place to wait, but before he returned, I was seen by an Indian who knew me. A Mohawk from the Seven Nations who lived for a time at Kanowalohale—a tall one, his father’s people are Oneida.”
“Tames-His-Horse?” Two Hawks turned to his father. “He was at the river that day you returned from the Senecas. He went under the water as well and took the name of Joseph.”
“That one is not easy to forget,” Stone Thrower said. “What did he say to you, up there in Lachine?” he asked Ahnyero.
“He wanted to know what I was doing there. He tried to get me to come with him and speak to other warriors who are hanging about, waiting to fight. I knew then I could not stay, so I spoke to our spy and told him to remember his promise to give your lost one word of you. Then I left to return.”
Two Hawks saw his disappointment and frustration mirrored in his father’s face. “Does even Creator wish to keep him from us?”
Stone Thrower’s face cleared. “I do not know. I pray not, but Creator is working this out in His way and time. Do not lose hope.”
Ahnyero cleared his throat. “Listen—I do not know if this will be of help to you, but I have just spoken with Gansevoort and Willett. I am sent to Oswego.”
“Oswego?” Two Hawks said. “Where we hear the British will gather?”
“It is so. I am to go among them, talk to the Indians there—present myself as one whose sympathies have changed if I am again known. But here is a thing that will make you glad, brother. I need runners to go with me, to carry news back to this fort. Yours was the face that came first into my mind when these plans were told to me, and here I step into the sunlight and who do I see?”
The scout smiled at the eagerness Two Hawks knew his face must show. “I will be a runner for you. Do you think Johnson’s regiment has already come to Oswego?”
“It will be soon, in any case. I must find other warriors to be runners,” Ahnyero said. “Once that is done, we can make ready to leave. Do you wish to be one along with your son?” he asked Stone Thrower.
“I will be needed for the hunting, now that this one flies from me again like an arrow.” Stone Thrower turned to Two Hawks, half his mouth pulling into a smile, somehow proud, sad, amused, all at once.
With reluctance Two Hawks said, “If you need me…”
Stone Thrower put a hand to his son’s shoulder. “No. Do this thing for our people and theirs,” he added, with a nod toward Gansevoort and other officers ducking out through the headquarters entry. “And may Creator at last give you word or even sight of your brother. I will tell your mother what it is you do. We will send our prayers up for you.”
Turning, he gave Ahnyero a look, steady and speaking. Two Hawks in his eagerness caught only its tail but knew his father was asking the scout to guard the son he had always had with him, as well as to find the one in the portrait he carried against his heart.
19
July 1777
Buck Island, St. Lawrence River
As Private William Aubrey understood it, the Crown’s campaign had lost one of its three vital prongs. General Burgoyne was descending south from Chambly, in Quebec, along the lake passage to the Hudson, while Brigadier General St. Leger would lead his 34th Regiment and the rest of his loyalist forces east from Oswego, joined by a detachment of the 8th, Butler’s rangers, and whatever forces Joseph Brant had collected. Their initial objective was the investment of Fort Stanwix. Once that reportedly thin-garrisoned fort surrendered, they would pour into the Mohawk Valley, sweep the back-country militia before them, and converge with Burgoyne at Albany, severing New England from the rest of the rebelling colonies. But the third prong, General Howe—still in New York City—intended to focus his energies on hunting Washington’s rebels in and around Philadelphia and refused to alter his plans to join Burgoyne and St. Leger.
The latter’s brigade was well underway toward Oswego. They’d put in at Buck Island, near the point where the St. Lawrence broadened into Lake Ontario, for a temporary halt. It had needed a fortnight to travel upriver from Lachine with the seemingly endless series of rapids and cataracts, unnavigable to bateaux, requiring the soldiers to manhandle baggage and equipment over each portage; tedious, disheartening work, often watched by Indians lining the riverbank like spectators at a cricket match.
They were no sooner ashore at Buck Island than William, along with Angus MacKay, Robbie, and some twenty others, were set to clearing ground for an exercise field, St. Leger being of the opinion Johnson’s Greens stood in need of more drill practice.
“Aye, weel,” MacKay grumbled under his breath. “We’re a step closer to home and justice done. We ken a neck or twa we’ll be that glad to see in a hangman’s noose. Aye, Robbie?”
The lad’s reply was dutiful. “Aye, Da. That we will.”
A mile long and heavily forested, Buck Island boasted a ship-building operation. The bateaux on stocks, some of them massive transports set to ferry soldiers down the lake to Oswego, stirred memories William would rather have banished, but as he shouldered an ax and trooped away from the milling encampment and set to work grubbing brush, those memories felt more solid than the existence he was living now.
Anna, forgive me. The words chased through his thoughts a dozen times a day. As did a plea directed at the man she called Papa. Rage and hatred had at last simmered down, letting grief and regret rise to the surface. And the burning need to know…why?
He was awash in such thoughts when Sam appeared at his side, ax in hand. William caught his glance, then pretended he hadn’t. He raised the ax to sever a pine sapling near the ground, then set about grubbing the stump, the scent of sap and crushed needles sharp in his nose. Sweat dripped down his face in the heat.
Sam worked beside him, his silence a reproach.
William wanted to say something to alleviate the strain between them since Sam’s return to Lachine, which had occurred in William’s absence. An Indian had come in from the wilds with Sam, a warrior whose corroboration helped him wriggle out of the desertion charges awaiting him, returning a week behind the party with which he’d been sent out. Sam had given William the tale he’d presumably told Major Gray and Sir John—one of capture and torture. He’d the wounds to prove it. Only one thing Sam confessed to him that he’d kept from their commanding officers: he’d encountered William’s brother, Two Hawks, during his misadventure.
“I didn’t know him for your twin right off. He’s got his head shaved as they do and a wicked scar just here.” Sam, who had just removed his shirt, sniffed it, and tossed it aside with a grimace, touched a spot above his ear. “He’s darker, but in feature very like you.”
Alone in their Lachine billet, William had stared in renewed horror at the healing wounds on his friend’s chest. “Do you tell me my brother did that to you?”
“No.” Sam pulled a freshly laundered shirt over his head.
“But they were Oneidas?” If his brother had been among those who captured Sam, might that warrior—his father—have had a hand in administering the torture? He grasped Sam’s arm. “ ’Tis truth you tell me, Sam? My father and brother didn’t do this t
o you?”
For a suspended moment, Sam searched his face, indecision warring in his eyes. “I never saw your father.”
William let go his arm. “You’re not being honest with me. I don’t think you have been since we came over the mountains. You disappear for hours at a time without explanation—save I’ve seen you talking to Indians. Now you get yourself captured by Oneidas, happen to meet my twin, and I’m to think it coincidence?”
Sam’s indecision vanished in a thrust of his jaw. “If you’re accusing me of something, William, come out with it straight.”
William had backed down, at the time uncertain he wanted to know the truth. Were those marks of torture the work of his brother’s hands? Anna claimed to have befriended his twin. What exactly had she said of this Two Hawks? Having so long suppressed the memories of that terrible night, they proved too fragmented to recall now with certainty.
If only he’d waited, learned a little more…maybe he’d never have gone north with the man clearing ground beside him now.
Bone-weary, bug-bitten, and sweat-drenched, William was returning to camp with the rest of the detail when the Mohawk found him again. Looming out of the dusk, he stepped across William’s path, blocking his progress toward the beckoning aromas of cookery beyond a thicket of spruce. Above leggings and breechclout, the Mohawk wore a calico shirt belted with a colorful sash, through which was thrust a hunting knife and tomahawk. A neck sheath with a buck-horn knife hung at his chest. Slung at his shoulder was a rifle.
Last among the stragglers from the field, William halted, letting the others trudge on without him. Weary and spent, not a one looked back. He clenched the ax until the handle bit into his palm. His first encounter with Joseph Tames-His-Horse on the streets of Lachine had been curtailed once he’d realized the warrior’s connection to his Oneida kin. Twice before the regiment departed the village, the Mohawk had attempted to speak to him. William had managed to elude the man each time. He’d hoped the Indian had gotten it through his lofty head that he’d no wish to deepen their acquaintance.
Apparently he hadn’t.
“The King’s army works you hard?” the Indian inquired. When William turned a hand palm upward, revealing its raw state, Joseph’s face showed disbelief, as if he couldn’t credit a man letting himself be worked like an ox. Then he shrugged. “You come to my fire now. There is food,” he added as William’s stomach gave an impatient rumble.
Joseph Tames-His-Horse was one determined Indian. Worse than the mosquitoes whining round their ears.
“Look you,” William said. “I’ll eat what’s provided yonder if I don’t fall asleep first, so say whatever you’ve been wanting to say to me and get it over.”
There was light enough to see the lift of the Indian’s sweeping brows, the dark gaze tilted down at him. “Listen then. There was a party of scouts sent south to Fort Stanwix, most of them Mohawk. They were sent to take prisoners and learn from them how many are in that fort, how much is its strength, for when you and those with you come that way.” Joseph jerked his chin toward the trees and the encampment beyond and the ship-building site where masts bristled dark against a sky still tinged orange with sunset.
Despite hunger and exhaustion, William was suddenly interested in what this Indian was saying. “Did you go with them? Where are the prisoners? Have they talked?”
“Five prisoners we carried to that one who is over the things to do with Indians.”
Daniel Claus, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he meant.
“Are they still being questioned?”
“We did our own questioning. Here is what we learned: the garrison at Stanwix is strong. Much soldiers. The fort is built up—this I saw. Already they know you come and the number of your warriors.”
William frowned, uncertain whether to credit a report at stark variance with the army’s intelligence—Sam’s included—that Fort Stanwix was thinly manned and still under repair. But he pretended to believe the Indian. “Will this intelligence alter St. Leger’s plans?”
A shrug. “If he trusts the words of captives.”
“Already they know you come and the number of your warriors.”
Fatigue fell away like a blanket discarded. “The rebels at Fort Stanwix know Johnson’s regiment is coming?” He didn’t need the Indian’s grunt of assent to know it was so. Had word gone beyond the fort? Gone as far as Schenectady? Did Anna know he was part of the invasion force set to descend upon her?
What else Joseph Tames-His-Horse had said belatedly sank in. He’d said they know you come. Not we. “Are you no longer in this fight?”
Before Joseph could reply, a familiar growl rose behind him. “Since ye dinna seem interested in your grub, Private Breed, ye’ll take first guard duty down at the boats.”
William turned as Sergeant Campbell stalked past the spruces and stood with feet planted wide, reaching out a broad hand. “Collect your arms. I’ll be takin’ that ax.”
“Aye sir.” Clenching his teeth as his stomach clamored in protest, William handed over the ax.
Campbell stood back, waiting for him to proceed. William cast a glance back to where Joseph Tames-His-Horse stood, wondering how the sergeant could ignore such a presence, to find naught but a spruce bough waving as if in a passing breeze.
Sam Reagan rose from the fire as William emerged from his tent, smothered in full regimentals, accoutered for sentry. Around them in the falling summer dark, men’s voices murmured, laughed, quarreled as they downed the evening’s rum ration. Somewhere a knife blade was being scraped against stone. A fifer struggled over a tune too broken to recognize. The faces at the near fire hung in haggard lines. Most were too tired from the work detail to do more than gripe and yawn.
Sam thrust a linen-wrapped parcel at him. “I set aside your ration and grease for your face—have you seen the like of these mosquitoes? I itch from scalp to soles.” His gaze held steady, offering more than food.
“They’re appalling.” William took the parcel, hesitated, then added, “I appreciate it.”
Sam’s long-absent grin flashed in the firelight. “Manage not to land on me when you fall into your bedroll later and we’ll call it square.”
20
July 1777
Lake Ontario
William wasn’t rowing, poling, or otherwise engaged with propelling the massive bateau in the vanguard of the advancing army. He was leaning against the vessel’s side, gazing westward into shrouding mist, when the bark canoe appeared out of the drifting vapor. It was one of many such small craft surrounding them in the veiled, watery dawn, moons to the vanguard’s planet. St. Leger, discounting the intelligence obtained from the Mohawk’s captives, had ordered an advance—the Royal Yorkers among them—to proceed down the lake to Fort Oswego to join Butler, Brant, Claus, and their assembled forces.
They’d left Buck Island in darkness, amid the splash of oars and sweeps, the terse bark of orders. By the time they reached the lake—little more than a sense of the river’s islanded channel widening into something far more sweeping in size—dawn had flushed the enclosing mist the delicate hue of a ripened peach. Somewhere a loon gave its eerie call. Ahead, a flotilla of waterfowl, disturbed by the bateaux’s passage, burst into raucous motion and scattered before them on indignant wings.
By contrast, the canoe, and the Indians in it, emerged from the mist in silence, as if the vapors themselves had coalesced into form off the bateau’s side. The warrior at the bow sat a head higher in the craft than his fellows, long bronzed arms gripping a paddle that sliced the lake’s dark waters. Slowing the canoe to glide in tandem with the bateau, Joseph Tames-His-Horse looked at William. No surprise lit the dark gaze—never a chance meeting with this Indian—but a measured intensity that drilled like a lance, as if the Mohawk meant to underscore the words spoken by firelight the evening before.
More than a week after their first encounter on Buck Island, Watts’s company had been ordered to draw their firing allotment of fifty rounds per
man. William had been on his way back to his tent, cartridge box full, when once again the Indian cut him from his fellows with the skill of a collie among sheep.
“Come,” he’d said. “I dreamed of you. We must talk.”
Bemused by the invitation—or command—William nonetheless followed the Indian past outlying tents and sentries, past stumps of trees felled for boat building, to a faint trail leading through untouched forest. In moments they reached a fire and a brush shelter. The warrior motioned William to sit while he went about pouring coffee from a pot steaming at the fire’s edge. Joseph Tames-His-Horse handed him a cup, then seated himself and unearthed a clay pipe, which he packed with a mixture of dried bark, leaf, and tobacco. Its fragrance mingled with the coffee’s, a brew surprisingly rich. When he got it drawing well, the Indian raised the pipe to the four directions, then offered it to William, who accepted, thinking that aside from the forest ringed about and the stars accumulating above, he might have been in some gentleman’s parlor on a summer’s eve, such were the unhurried manners of his host. He passed the pipe back and waited.
After topping off William’s coffee with the last in the pot, Joseph sat back and said, “Here is the thing about why I am in this fight.”
Having all but forgotten the question he’d put to the Indian days ago, William listened, sensing an urgency to communicate simmering beneath the outward calm.
“I have a sister, back along this river a distance.” Joseph nodded toward the rushing chatter that reached them through the wood, the St. Lawrence flowing east toward Montreal. “A thing happened with her that I did not like. She took a husband. That is why I left. Why I am here.”
William’s brows bunched in an attempt to understand why a sister marrying would have driven this Indian from his home. Had he disapproved her choice? Seeing how that powerful jaw was clenched, he hadn’t the nerve to ask.
